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Samuel II, Attorney at Law

Category: Employment Law

Satisfied Customers: 27009

Experience: More than 20 years of experience practicing law.

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I am an employer in FLorida small business with 15 employee.

Customer Question

I am an employer in FLorida for a small business with 15 employee. I have an employee who is pregnant and was taken off work by her OG/BYN but is not due to until Feb 2016-she no longer has any PTO time-we do provide benefits to our employees-we contribute $300 per month towards her health insurance and the employee is responsible to the balance of the plan she chooses-what is my responsibility towards paying for her benefits if/when she returns to work after the birth?

She is completely off work "until further notice" her due date is Feb 2, 2016 so I assume she will be out 6 weeks after the birth as well, with our company being a small business, I was slways under the assumption FMLA did not apply to us

If an employee is provided group health insurance, the employee is entitled to the continuation of the group health insurance coverage during FMLA leave on the same terms as if he or she had continued to work. If family member coverage is provided to an employee, family member coverage must be maintained during the FMLA leave. The employee must continue to make any normal contributions to the cost of the health insurance premiums. If paid leave is substituted for FMLA leave, the employee’s share of group health plan premiums must be paid by the method normally used during paid leave (usually payrolldeduction). An employee on unpaid FMLA leave must make arrangements to pay the normal employee portion of the insurance premiums in order to maintain insurance coverage. If the employee’s premium payment is more than 30 days late, the employee’s coverage may be dropped unless the employer has a policy of allowing a longer grace period. The employer must provide written notice to the employee that the payment has not been received and allow at least 15 days after the date of the letter before coverage stops.

I suggest that you Document your reasons for terminating your employee. Under the employment-at-will doctrine, you can terminate an employee for any legal reason and without prior notice. Be sure to speak with your employee about any misconduct or performance-based issues as soon as possible. If you discovered the misconduct while your employee has already requested leave or is already out on maternity leave, you should discuss the misconduct while your employee is using her leave.

So if you have information that she was not performing before she requested leave, and if you followed policy as to addressing those inadequacies with her while she was there, that is important to have in a file.